Discovery BoxJob 38:31-35 
Context38:31 Can you tie the bands 1 of the Pleiades,
or release the cords of Orion?
38:32 Can you lead out
the constellations 2 in their seasons,
or guide the Bear with its cubs? 3
38:33 Do you know the laws of the heavens,
or can you set up their rule over the earth?
38:34 Can you raise your voice to the clouds
so that a flood of water covers you? 4
38:35 Can you send out lightning bolts, and they go?
Will they say to you, ‘Here we are’?
1 tn This word is found here and in 1 Sam 15:32. Dhorme suggests, with others, that there has been a metathesis (a reversal of consonants), and it is the same word found in Job 31:36 (“bind”). G. R. Driver takes it as “cluster” without changing the text (“Two astronomical passages in the Old Testament,” JTS 7 [1956] :3).
2 tn The word מַזָּרוֹת (mazzarot) is taken by some to refer to the constellations (see 2 Kgs 23:5), and by others as connected to the word for “crown,” and so “corona.”
4 tc The LXX has “answer you,” and some editors have adopted this. However, the reading of the MT makes better sense in the verse.
